Before your start, make sure to checkout the Technical Requirements and how to Install and enable the module. If you are unsure what Content Syndication is, you can learn more about it at Content Sync Use-Cases.


All connected sites must have roughly the same configuration for the entity types you want to share. Roughly means that if an entity type or bundle doesn't exist on target site, these entities won't be created and if a field that's required on the target site is not provided by the source site, that content won't be added to the target site to avoid broken content.


In the following steps we assume that all sites have our module installed and are registered.


Scenario

Umami is a leading food portal with a global presence that's focusing on target audiences from North America and Europe. They manage a global brand site and tens of satellite sites in each individual country they are focusing on. They also manage hundreds of small sites that are focusing on specific demographics like their veggie brand Green Beans that are operating in individual country sides where the target demographic has a strong presence.


Sites

  • umami.com
  • umami.us, umami.de, ...
  • greenbeans.de, greenbeans.us, ...
  • (other brand sites)


Objectives

Content Entry

Umami wants to centrally manage all their content that is published to the country sites from the central umami.com site. The editorial process is simplified as all publishing activity is centralized. Centrally publishing, updating, unpublishing and removing content makes content governance simple and effective.


Push-Publish content

Content is automatically created, updated and published on the sites where it's relevant in the languages that are available on the local site. This ensures that visitors from across the globe are presented consistent, relevant and up-to-date content.

Content that was added by the content entry site can't be changed on most target sites, but some country sites that are large enough to staff them with local editorial teams can also customize content on the regional site and add their own local content that specifically targets visitors of only one site.

Smaller, more targeted sites like the Green Beans sites only receive content that's relevant to them, e.g. content that has the Vegetarian tag assigned. 


Pools

To meaningfully group content for different workflows and scenarios, we are creating the following Pools (repositories):

  • Content
  • Corporate


Configure umami.com to push content

Push Content

Navigate to Web Services > Content Sync > Flows to create a new Flow. The first screen should look like this:


Settings:

  • Name: Push Content
  • Type: Push content
  • Pools: Content, Corporate
  • Pool Assignment: Editor chooses
    • If you are working with only one Pool, choose Assign All instead to save editors the extra step of assigning a Pool.
  • Push: Manually
    • This allows editors to keep changes local until they're ready to be shared. This also allows editors to keep content local in general if it's only relevant on the content entry site.


Step 2: Define types to include


Settings:

  • All our node content is in the left column, allowing editors to push Basic Pages, Articles, Recipes.
  • Menu link content and Taxonomy terms are in the right column so they are ignored completely by this Flow because we want to manage them independently of content.
    • If you want to share menu items and taxonomy terms along with their content, just keep them to the middle column instead.
  • Everything else like Block content, Crop, File, Media is in the middle column so that whenever a node is pushed, all of these entities that are part of that content or used in that content are pushed along with it. So when a Basic Page is using a block that uses a media item that uses a file that has a crop entity, all of these entities will be pushed along with the basic page and fully replicated on the target site.
    • Depending on the modules you are using, you may see additional types showing up here like paragraphs or bricks.


Continue to step 3 to review your changes and submit.


Configure corporate sites to receive content

Pull Content

Navigate to Web Services > Content Sync > Flows to create a new Flow. The first screen should look like this:


Settings:

  • Name: Pull Content
  • Type: Pull content
  • Pools: Content and Corporate
  • Pull new content: Immediately
    • So whenever content is pushed by the content entry site, this site will immediately add or update that content locally. Alternatively, you can allow editors to pick & choose content, see Content Repositories.
  • Pull updates: Allow local changes
    • This allows editors to explicitly customize content for their local site, as described in more detail here.


Step 2: Define types to include

This mirrors the settings from your pushing site:


Continue to step 3 to review your configuration and submit.


Configure project sites to receive content

Project sites are pretty much identical, but don't receive content from the Corporate pool.

Pull Content

Navigate to Web Services > Content Sync > Flows to create a new Flow. The first screen should look like this:


Settings:

  • Name: Pull Content
  • Type: Pull content
  • Pools: Content
  • Pull new content: Immediately
    • So whenever content is pushed by the content entry site, this site will immediately add or update that content locally. Alternatively, you can allow editors to pick & choose content, see Content Repositories.
  • Pull updates: Allow local changes
    • This allows editors to explicitly customize content for their local site, as described in more detail here.


Step 2: Define types to include

This mirrors the settings from your pushing site:


Continue to step 3 to review your configuration and submit.